Incongrous
So I'm going to be a bit circumspect here, because it's somewhat intrusive, but nevertheless of interest to me.
As I've already mentioned, I was on a plane yesterday, and I was some combination of surprised and disappointed at one of the passengers who came wandering through the curtain from the posh bit at the front. Without naming name, it was a performer of some celebrity (not at the big Hollywood-style level, more at the British institution, been-around-forever level) with a reputation for being 'of the common man' and supporting various right-on causes at the rather more Proletarian end of the scale than the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class end.
Of course, there's not a thing to say he can't be a supporter of those causes and not travel in whatever manner he chooses, but it just made me feel a little odd about him. More about me than about him, really, I suppose.
Speedy
Meanwhile, in the fast moving world of Liberal Democrat politics, I parked at the airport this afternoon listening to some senior LibDems on the radio saying that Menzies Campbell should resign as leader. And by the time I got off the plane, he had.
On This Day In History…
.... In the year Two Thousand and Six to be exact, The Mrs and I became The Mrs and I. Yes, that's right, today's the first anniversary, and we've made it through a year without divorcing or killing each other, while also spending months dealing with all the stress associated with the flat(s) sales and house purchase. So it must be made to last.
For various reasons, we're actually marking the occasion next weekend with a couple of days back in our honeymoon retreat, but I couldn't let the day go by without remarking that I'm still blissfully happy with him and our lives together, and that I love him very much.
Define ‘Proof’
The ongoing press coverage of the Madeleine McCann nonsense continues to distance itself further and further from reality, and indeed journalism. Today's News Of The World front page shouts "Maddie Kidnap - The Proof", over a story that explains there's now proof that Madeleine was kidnapped from that room, rather than just wandered off, because Kate McCann says that she found the bedclothes still pulled up as they had been when she last saw her daughter in the bed.
Seriously - that's it. That's the 'proof' that the NotW thinks is worthy of a front page. In most dictionaries I think that would probably be better suited to the definition of 'hearsay'.
Thursdays Are (Mostly) Funny
BBC Two are running a new comedy strand on Thursdays under the umbrella "Thursdays Are Funny". The line up as of last night is The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, The Peter Serafinowicz Show, and The Graham Norton Show. The latter I won't discuss, because it's just the latest iteration of the format he's been running with for years now. The first of the three is Jennifer Saunders' new Dawn-free project, co-written with Dr Tanya Byron from the brilliant House of Tiny Tearaways, and is the story of a daytime discussion show host. The first episode last week was very funny. Last night's second helping was funnier - really laugh out loud funny at a number of points, and Vyle herself is a brilliant creation - one of those you think is going to be pure sub-Edina stereotype and actually isn't.
And then, oh dear oh dear oh dear, there's Peter Serafinowicz. Frequently very funny indeed in projects like Look Around You, and his minor recurring role in Spaced, in his own sketch show he's just terrible. We gave programme one about fifteen minutes to make us laugh, and didn't so much as crack a smile, and against our better judgement gave programme two about five minutes, and if anything it was worse. Painfully, horrifyingly unfunny in a way that's so extreme it's difficult to watch even in a 'car crash TV' way. Worryingly, it's even reusing sketch concepts from the last unbearably unfunny 'personality' based BBC sketch show I recall - Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor.
So I submit that BBC two needs to change its strand title, and I offer the one from this posting as an alternative.
Living The Dream
So last night More4 broadcast a programme in their True Stories strand called Czech Dream. It was made as a final project by two Czech film school students, and followed their project to create an entire marketing campaign around the opening of a new hypermarket that didn't exist, all the way from the creation of the logo to the ribbon-cutting for the assembled would-be first shoppers in front of a hoarding which had nothing behind it.
Along the way, they enlisted the local office of ad agency network BBDO to create the campaign, and produced everything from faked up product packaging to TV and radio ads and flyers with product and price details on them. The end result was a bunch of people displaying really a wholly predictable set of responses, from anger and outrage to amusement and resignation.
As an experiment, I could see a few points of interest arising, but as a film I think it was terribly weak. To begin with, though various of the hoodwinked offered their theories as the the motivation behind the scam (including a test of people's gullibility or greed, comment about the nature of marketing, and interestingly, parallels with the then active Czech government campaign to encourage the population to vote 'yes' to joining the EU), at no point did the film-makers actually state what their aim was in the whole enterprise, rendering it impossible to make any objective assessment of the thing's success.
An attempt by the film makers to focus attention on the money made by ad agencies, media owners and the like when dealing with some angry people post the 'launch' felt like too little too late to save the structure, and actually had a nasty whiff of desperate post-rationalisation about it.
On top of which, having enlisted various people's involvement, they proceeded to treat them incredibly unreasonably. The woman who had done research on the effectiveness of hypermarket flyers for them was aggressively questioned about her role in helping big businesses put one over on the public, when her feedback had all quite clearly been in support of honesty and accuracy.
Overall, it felt like a big waste of time, energy and opportunity.
Oh Thank God
Natasha Kaplinksi is leaving the BBC to go to Channel Five.
Now there's absolutely no chance that I might accidentally stumble across her doing that "keeping a seat warm until a real journalist comes along" routine while I'm watching a serious news programme.
This Queen Thing (Revisited)
So Peter Fincham has resigned over 'Queengate', which I blogged about a few months ago.
To call the whole affair a storm in a teacup is to undervalue every previous storm in every previous teacup. This whole 'trust in the media' extravaganza has got wholly out of hand, and the sooner we get out of the silly season and can stop wasting time and energy on it the better.
On Yer Bike
Bicycling fever has swept through More A Way Of Life Towers. The Mrs has bought two bikes in the last week, though to be fair, one of them is ending up being mine.
This is a culmination of various factors including the collective need to take more exercise and the fact that when we get out of town it's nice not to be tied to using the car all the time. And given The Mrs' commute can usefully involve a ride at either end of a train journey, he's gone down the folding route, with Dahon being the manufacturer of choice. It's funny, but I'd never heard of the make ten days ago, but in typical style, now that I know about them I'm spotting them all over the place.
Anyway, this means that for the first time in many many years, I'm back on my bike, and for the first time ever, cycling in London traffic*. So I have to try very hard not to be the kind of crap London cyclist that pisses me off so royally when I'm driving. No driving the wrong way up one way streets, no crossing red lights, no generally acting like a complete moron, basically.
* And also for the first time ever, wearing a helmet while cycling. I know this makes me sound like the middle-aged geezer that I actually am, but I do find myself wondering how on earth my generation and all those that came before us survived, if helmets are so essential to not dying on a bike. It's the nanny state gone mad(tm).
On Yer Todd
Trailer for Tim Burton's version of Sweeney Todd is up, and I think it looks great. I've always wanted to see the show live, but this looks like a good alternative for a winter night out.